By default WebSphere Portal includes navigational state information along with other information in browser URL in encoded form. Sometimes the length of the URL’s will exceed browser URL max chars limit. This may happen because navigating many pages and portlets on these pages and this even can apply if long render parameters are swapped to the session..

With latest fix (WP 7.0.0.1 CF002) , we can resolve this issue with following configurations. These can be set in the resource environment provider "WP StateManagerService":

The threshold meaning the number of pages whose portlets and shared state should be kept. Must be a positive integer.
Default value is "10"
Example: historymanager.threshold = 10

historymanager.prp.removalstrategy

Defines a strategy how the shared state is cleaned up.
Possible values are

a). no_removal : public render parameters will not be removed, i. e. only portlet specific state will be removed.

b). wcm_id : Public render parameters will be removed if the expired page has an explicit shared state bucket assigned that starts with the String "ibm.wcm."

c). explicit_bucket_assignment : Public render parameters will be removed if the expired page has an explicit shared state bucket assigned regardless
of a prefix. This is a more general strategy than "wcm_id"

WebSphere portal themes have evolved continuously over time to provide a better end user experience and address issues like performance, complexity of development, maintenance etc. This section gives an overview of the different types of themes that are available in WebSphere Portal.

Portal

This theme is available since WebSphere Portal 6.0 and is applied by default for the administration pages in WebSphere Portal 7.0, it supports Server Side Aggregation (SSA). In SSA the entire page rendering happens at the server side, the server sends the complete markup to the client during every interaction. The Portal/IBM theme is developed using JSPs, scriptlets and JSP tags are used to introduce dynamic elements. This theme has a few disadvantages that have been addressed in the succeeding themes:

Files are not easily readable for web developers as logic and presentation are combined together.

Interactions result in a full page refresh resulting in longer loading time for users.

PortalWeb2

The PortalWeb2 theme was introduced in WebSphere Portal 6.1, it supports Client Side Aggregation (CSA). CSA is a technique of rendering a WebSphere Portal page that moves the rendering workload from the server to the client. The initial markup download contains the HTML skeleton of the page and a number of markup placeholders. These placeholders are replaced with HTML markup by subsequent AJAX requests. Data is obtained from the server by invoking the Representational State Transfer (REST) services provided by WebSphere Portal. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLTs), XML Path Language (XPath) and JavaScript are used at the client side to format and present the data.
The PortalWeb2 theme also supports SSA rendering mode as a fallback in case the page/portlets are not supported. This theme is not supported from WebSphere Portal 7.0, but existing themes developed by customers will continue to work in WebSphere Portal 7.0.

Page Builder

A hybrid theme to incorporate the advantages of SSA and CSA modes resulted in the Page Builder theme, this theme was introduced in WebSphere Portal 6.1.5. As in the Portal theme, page aggregation happens at the server side, inline customizations like creation of a new page, drag and drop of pages & portlets etc are loaded asynchronously on a demand basis, thus providing a more interactive and better user experience. The Page Builder theme provides options to create/customize pages inline rather than having to use administration portlets. It lets you bring in content from a variety of content sources like IBM Mashup Center, Lotus Connections, and other custom sources.

In WebSphere Portal 7.0, existing Page Builder features have been enhanced to support the latest Client Side Aggregation architecture. It provides a well comprehendible programming model, and a user interface that is consistent across other lotus products. It supports both portlets & widgets, and enables portlets to be exposed as iWidgets. Latest CSS3 & HTML5 features have been exploited for better performance and easier customization. WebDAV for WebSphere Portal can be used to administer portal themes and skins, users can create new themes & update existing ones using standard operating system tools.

Which theme to choose?

The decision matrix provided below gives a comparison between the themes available in WebSphere Portal:

By default, installation ofPortal and WCM v7 includes around 117 applications (96 for base install) are installed. In many scenarios, we may not be using all applications simultaneously.

Following are three different ways we can improve the portal start up performance.

Method #1: Automatically disabling applications via developer mode

The "enable-develop-mode-startup-performance" configuration task will set all applications Auto Start parameter to 'No' except the applications listed in the file wp.base_TargetMapExclList.properties during a Portal server startup.

On a Portal 7.0.0.1 full and base content install, all applications EXCEPT the following will be disabled (82 applications will be disabled):

Note: To add applications to the white list, modify the wp_profile_root\PortalServer\config\StartupPerformance\wp.base_TargetMapExclList.properties file. Add a line such as App_name, where App_name is the name of the application. This list can change between fixpack releases, so review the wp.base_TargetMapExclList.properties file

Run the ConfigEngine.bat enable-develop-mode-startup-performance -DWasPassword=password task, from the wp_profile_root\ConfigEngine directory

Run the ConfigEngine.bat disable-develop-mode-startup-performance -DWasPassword=password task, from the wp_profile_root\ConfigEngine directory, to revert back to a production server.

Method #2: Automatically disabling applications via Portal light mode

The "enable-portal-light-startup-performance" configuration task will set Auto Start to 'No' for all applications defined in the file wp.base_TargetMapInclList.properties to stop them from being auto started during Portal server startup.

On a Portal 7.0.0.1 full and base content install, the following 36 applications will be disabled:

NOTE: This list can change between fixpack releases, so review the wp.base_TargetMapInclList.properties file.

Write down the names of the applications that you want to add to the list of lazy applications. Add only applications to the list that are not used by your usual scenarios and that are not required for portal start up.

Note: To add applications to the black list(stop loading by portal startup), modify the wp_profile_root\PortalServer\config\StartupPerformance\wp.base_TargetMapInclList.properties file. This file contains the list of applications that are not loaded when the server is started. To remove the application , comment out the appropriate application name or delete it from the list. This list can change between fixpack releases, so review the wp.base_TargetMapInclList.properties file

Run theConfigEngine.bat enable-portal-light-startup-performance

-DWasPassword=password task, from the wp_profile_root\ConfigEngine directory

Run the ConfigEngine.bat disable-portal-light-startup-performance -DWasPassword=password task, from the wp_profile_root\ConfigEngine directory, to revert back to a production server.

Method #3: Disabling applications manually

If it is not desirable to automatically disable 82 or 36 applications from auto-starting by using developer or light mode, it is possible to perform this task manually and disable each application one at a time. To perform this task of preventing the applications from auto-starting:

WebRadar tool provides dashboard where you can analyze your web content processes (which content is expiring, which content will be publishing…etc) and generates the different out of box Lotus WCM reports.

WebRadar is designed for a wide variety of users including content administrators, authors, reviewers, approvers and marketers

WebRadar is Tightly integrated with IBM Lotus Web Content Management and WebSphere Portal to pull all required data. Using WebRadar, Content administrators and marketers can monitor web projects at every stage of development through powerful reporting capabilities and metrics that focus on the content. In addition, WebRadar can determine which author is assigned to content, find outdated content, and expose publishing bottlenecks.

While there are many tools in the market that are focused on producing external web performance metrics, WebRadar provide insight into the state of the content.

WebRadar improves the productivity of content authors and administrators by providing them insight into the state of their content.

Out-of-the-box and customized reports can be easily produced to find information based on content. In addition, WebRadar can determine which author is assigned to content, find outdated content, and expose publishing bottlenecks. WebRadar is designed for a wide variety of users including content administrators, authors, reviewers, approvers and marketers

Some major advantages of WebRadar

a). Out of box reports (like find content that gets publish /expire in next month …)

b). Filter reports based on metadata of content

c). Editing multiple contents directly from the WebRadar

d). Easy to find out the content and identify problems (why content is not published …etc)

Requires separate license from Ephox and it is based on PVU(processor value unit). Generally only authoring systems requires license (you mayn’t required in production). And it costs about around 100$ / PVU and support cost 25$ / PVU per year.

a). Update C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\ConfigEngine\config\helpers\wp_security_ids.properties file with corresponding values like below (Instead of modifying the wkplc.properties file, you can update this properties file)

Note: If any problems while executing the above commands,
a) make sure above properties proper (like LDAP admin ID(bindDN), PWD).
b) check the C:\IBM\WebSphere\wp_profile\ConfigEngine\properties\wkplc.properties and file and make sure Stand alone LDAP properties are valid and same as entered above

Once the above commands executed successfully, restart the portal and application server if its already started.